


In the Hours

by LosttotheHoping



Series: Kage no Monogatari [12]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-18 02:44:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LosttotheHoping/pseuds/LosttotheHoping
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she finds him, impulse takes over.  Then it’s just in the moment, as she listens to his story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Hours

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Goes AU about part-way through the Uchiha fight, but ends the same…
> 
> Was randomly in an angsty mood one day. Anyway, please comment, and enjoy!

Soundless footsteps take her closer to where he lays, blood like an aura around him on the ground.  She can tell he’s not breathing; can tell he’s either dead or about to be.  Sasuke is gone.  Either taken by someone else or he left himself.  Sakura has honestly started to just _not care_.

Instead, she kneels beside her erstwhile teammate’s brother, staring down at his face.  Someone’s closed his eyes, and she wonders who.  Then she shakes her head and wonders what he’d thought, in the end.  What he’d wanted for himself.  Had he wanted to live?  Had he wanted something else?

Gently, she reaches out, rain-chilled fingers brushing whisps of hair from his face.  She swallows; he’s already so _cold_.  Those fingers slide down his cheek, press against his pulse.  She goes very, very still.  Waits.  A moment passes, and the sluggish, fading thump against her fingertips repeats.

Haruno Sakura, medic first, shinobi second, doesn’t hesitate.  She scoops him up, grip enhanced by chakra, and hurries away before the others catch up.

xXx

It takes hours, and hours, and hours, but she manages to strengthen his heart.  She _heals_ it, forcing what remains of his illness to dry up.  Then she puts everything she has into rebuilding the muscle, regenerating the lost blood.  Works on him until she’s nearly breathless and can’t spend another bit of energy, quite literally.

When she opens her eyes finally, he’s looking back up at her.  She falls, exhausted beyond description, but he doesn’t catch her.

xXx

Sakura wakes again some time later, but the man she’d worked on hasn’t moved.  She realizes he must not have been very awake at all when she passed out.  She looks around at the glade they rested in, relieved that no one snuck up on them.

Rolling over onto her stomach, she pushes herself up on all fours and stagger-crawls to the sleeping Uchiha.  Checking his pulse reveals that he still lives, and she breathes an incredulous sigh of relief.  At least, now that he _is_ alive, he’s fighting for it.

She sits, lifting a hand and staring at it.  What has she done?  Her entire body is shaking, and she has barely any chakra left at all to defend herself.  Not to mention, she’s done this on behalf of a murderer, a man that’s driven the boy she loves to the brink of madness and beyond.  And all because she hates to see death when she can prevent it.

She draws her knees up to her chest, and she folds her arms on them, burying her face there.  Then she cries, harder than she’s ever cried.  She weeps from frustration, hopelessness, helplessness.  She sobs because she’s lost, and she doesn’t know what to do.  She’s helped a criminal on impulse, and now self-pity demands she feel miserable about it.

But dear gods, what is she going to do?

The soft sound of a hand slapping against springy, damp grass doesn’t draw her head up, but she goes silent.  Half of her hopes he’ll just kill her, and half of her is hoping he won’t notice she’s there, if she’s quiet enough.

Laughter makes every muscle in her body stiffen.  The sound is so soft, so sad, so self-deprecating that she eventually looks up just because she can’t believe it’s from him.  But there he is, arms wrapped around himself, back leaned up against a stump as he tries not to fall over.  And he’s laughing.  Sakura can only stare at him.

Itachi either doesn’t notice her gaze, or doesn’t care, because five minutes pass before he even _tries_ to get himself under control.  And even then, when dark eyes focus on her, he just gives her the laziest smile she’s ever seen, and doesn’t say a word.

She can’t understand it.  What is there to laugh about?  Why is he looking at her like that, like she’s something amusing that he hadn’t expected to see.

“You’re Sakura.”

Sakura flinches, because she hadn’t really expected such a velvet voice after that irritating bout of scratchy laughter.  She nods slowly.  “You’re Itachi,” she mumbles, wondering where he’s going with this.

“Aa.”  He sits up, grimaces as he rubs his chest.  His heart.  “You healed me.  Why?”

“I…”  She stops, because she sure as hell isn’t about to tell him the real reason.  He looks far too knowing anyway.  “I want answers,” she eventually says.  “There are things I don’t understand, that no one understands, and I want you to tell me.”  She climbs to her feet, but he doesn’t move from where he sits, and she crosses her arms.  Pretends she has more chakra than she does when she continues with, “And don’t think about escaping.  I can kill you in a moment.  It’d be easy; I have more chakra than you, and you aren’t completely healed.  So you’d better answer me.”

Uchiha Itachi regards her with interest.  She knows he knows she’s lying, and she knows he would likely have pointed this out, were their situation any different.  But for now, he doesn’t, and merely nods magnanimously.  “Then ask, Haruno Sakura of Konoha.”

She glares at him suspiciously, and proceeds to pry his story from him one detail at a time.  Soon enough, the picture is clear, and though she feels like she has so many things to ask, she can’t come up with any more questions for him.

So they lapse into silence, and the kunoichi feels a bit like crying again.  This time, for him, and for Sasuke, and for all the dead.  For their mother, whom Itachi speaks of with so much regret.  For their father, who was once the only person Itachi strove to please.

Sakura doesn’t cry, though, because she doesn’t wish to disrespect what he’s told her.  A part of her remains skeptical, of course, but there’s no way he’s lying.  She knows _Danzo_ , after all.  She knows what the man is like.  She knows he’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants.  Sakura _knows_ that man would even go so far as to force a little boy to kill every single person he cares about, just because Danzo is too terrified of doing it himself.  Not even the fact that Itachi was the best, then, excuses it.

Suddenly, Sakura is so _pissed off_.  She doesn’t know what to do with it, but she gets up and paces, fists clenched at her sides.  She doesn’t care if he’s watching her, she just can’t stop being so _mad_.  There’s a burning sensation right where her heart is, and her jaw is throbbing from clenching so hard for so long.  She feels breathless again, furious, near tears with ire.

And _Gods_ , she just wants to beat the shit out of Danzo!  If only that man had listened to the Hokage!  If only that man hadn’t gone against the Hokage’s wishes, then they wouldn’t have as many problems these days!

Or they’d have more.

The thought abruptly switches off the anger, making her feel tired, and sad, and drained utterly.  She can’t make up her mind whether she should leave, or wait out his recovery.  In the end, she sits back where she’d started, frowning at him for a very long time.

Itachi has been watching her as she thought, she knows, and he watches her still.  He just waits to see if she’ll say anything, or do anything, or just sit there staring at him again.

“I’m sorry.”

The words are from her, soft and sad, like his laughter.  She understands, and his shoulders slump as if a weight has been taken from them.  He says not a word, but she knows he’s accepted her sympathy, and that’s all she can do.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Characters and Naruto do not belong to me, but to Masashi Kishimoto. I am responsible for creating the situation, and the storyline only. Please do not take and use or post elsewhere without my express permission. Thank you.


End file.
